Actually, it's a good political gambit. Edwards as President would have the bully pulpit, and could submit a bill to Congress that revoked their health care coverage if they had not passed health care coverage by X date. Sure, the Congress could sit on that one, too, but that's a PR battle Edwards would easily win.

How can Edwards even think to believe that he can pull off a move like this? We are already dealing with a President who believes he has more powers than he already have. It's unconstitutional. I cringe everytime a candidate makes a statement to execute something that is CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL. The rhetoric is too much. He is clearly pandering.

Empty Words and Broken Promises are Easy. What's Hard is Getting Results for Real People.
In his six years in the United States Senate, JRE passed three bills into law, two of which were dedications for post offices in North Carolina. From his lofty perch on the Intelligence Committee, he did NOTHING to stop or correct the greatest intelligence failure in human history.
And now he promises to do something that sounds good but he cannot achieve. Typical politician.

Everyone cites that Yglesias post as if he was Larry Tribe. Have any real constitutional lawyers - not just dilettante bloggers - actually commented on Edwards' plan? There's been only two cases to arise under the 27th Amendment (Boehner v. Anderson, 809 F.Supp. 138, 139 (D.D.C. 1992)) and (Schaffer v. Clinton, (240 F.3d 878)), and neither reached the issue. Good arguments can be raised about whether suspending healthcare coverage counts as an actionable change in "compensation" for the 27th Amendment's purposes, and I'm sure an Edwards administration would feel very comfortable about making those arguments, both in front of federal judges (who'd be hearing the case as one of first impression) and the court of public opinion. Great ad.

For the sake of a common denominator of intelligence, what John Edwards is saying is, at best, empty rhetoric used for effect that cheapens him as a serious politician. At worst, he is someone who has not read nor understands the Constitution and is spreading a falsehood as truth. What response would he have when he made that threat and 100 Senators who have already been working under the purview of the Constitution, some as long as decades, point out to him that he is flatly contradicting our fundamental governing document? As a lawyer and serious candidate he should be embarassed.

I'm an Edwards supporter, but I hate that his campaign just dropped money in Iowa on THIS. For every headline he gets, the story will contain someone calling him out on this as it being impossible B.S. Even if the other poster is right, and he could possibly have more room to maneuver on this as President than we think, the story, here and now, will not play out like that.

Ben,
Calling this "unconstitutional" in your post seems to be a clear overstatement. Even just based on the comments to Matthew's piece, it's highly questionable that this would be a violation of the 27th Amendment - health insurance is not obviously compensation and the Amendment itself appears to apply to pay increases. Moreover, there's nothing to stop Edwards from having this take effect at the end of the Congress' term, which would make the whole argument moot. Given these questions, it's really jumping the gun to call this "unconstitutional." At most, it's unsettled law, but it's not clearly unconstitutional.

You could make the argument that the threat violates the legislative process as laid out in Article I, but that's a whole other matter. As a voter, here's what I would think when seeing this ad--"Edwards is so passionate about health care that, if he doesn't get what he wants, he's willing to take it away from people as a form of punishment." Perhaps that works for some, but not at all for me.

Also, I think it's important to point something else out that's missing from this discussion--despite what's happened over the last seven years, Congress still has a role to play in, you know, enacting laws. Remember that whole concept of checks and balances? Comments assuming that Edwards-as-President would have this all-powerful ability to affect such change, without Congress' consent, are laughable.

Ok, so he's exaggerating a bit, but the original rhetoric was something along the lines of submitting a bill to Congress to take away health insurance. And THAT would make for a good pressure tactic and good symbolism, while obviously Congress could sit on it, as an earlier comment pointed out. And eventually, moderate Dems who'd oppose a plan would start fearing progressive primary challenges based on their repeated votes to keep their own insurance when they've done nothing about their constituents' insurance. So the underlying tactic here is a good pressure tactic...the other commenters here seem to be getting bent out of shape over a little oversimplification and exaggeration in this round of rhetoric.

This is especially a dumb tactical move given that one of his opponents was a Constitutional law professor and the other has Bill Clinton, who can speak with authority of the power of the office; and also, running against George Bush. Need I bother looking up in Lexis Edwards' comments on signing statements?

Its funny: most of these posts are by typically Americans... uninformed, vapid, sound bite driven, and reflecting only a modicum of true rational intellectual thought. This is an important issue, is it not? So why don't you give it the attention it deserves.
Only 1 commenter has actually cited caselaw that deals with the point at issue. DO NOT FORGET THAT IT IS THE LAW WE ARE TALKING ABOUT, AND THE LAW IS INTERPRETED BY JUDGES, NOT PUNDITS AND CLINTON CAMPAIGN OFFICIALS.
Until you've done legal research or consulted true legal scholarship on this issue, how can you judge it negatively? If all the ad does is raise a debate over this point - it will have served its clear intended purpose, to get American voters (generally speaking, the "mob") to consider to themselves why Congress people have a constitutional right to healthcare while they don't. Perchance, if no one can strip Congress of healthcare because of the Constitution, maybe we need a Constitional Amendment making healthcare available in some form to all Americans.
Duh.
Meanwhile - until a Judge has ruled, Edwards proposal, which is to SUBMIT LEGISLATION TO CONGRESS, a power of the President under Art. II, is a creative and bold proposal to use the bully pulpit to the ends of inciting discussion on an important issue, and dissembling the status quo.